


Pride

by imissmaeberry



Series: Forgive Me Father [4]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Demons, Angst, Character Death, F/M, Hateful Behavior, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, POV Second Person, Reader is Not Nice in this one kids!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 13:40:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20083132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imissmaeberry/pseuds/imissmaeberry
Summary: some people are pretty, inside and out. some people it's just on the outside.





	Pride

**Author's Note:**

> bonus points for guessing the inspo of this one

“excuse me, i - not to bother you, but i feel like i’ve seen you somewhere before.”

you look up from your coffee, and smile gently. this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this, and it probably won’t be the last. the woman standing in front of you is, as you suspected, a stranger.

“i’m sorry, i’m afraid we haven’t met before.” you say, shrugging.

“no, no, it -” the woman laughs. “it wasn’t that. weren’t you a model for that new makeup campaign? i saw it in a magazine somewhere.”

you laugh goodnaturedly back. “no, that wasn’t me. i’ve never modeled before. it’s very kind of you to say, though.”

“oh, well, you definitely could! forgive me for bothering you.”

you wave her off. “oh please, not a bother at all. i mean, not to brag, but i kind of get that a lot.”

the woman laughs and moves towards the counter of the cafe. “i’m sure you do, sweetheart.”

you turn your attention back to your coffee and the reports on your computer screen, pushing down on the unsettled feeling beginning to gather in your gut. you look around quickly, but no one is staring at you.

no one you can see.

\

you make your way out of the shop, bags of new clothes hanging from your wrist. there are cabs speeding up and down the road as you start the short walk back to your apartment.

you have headphones in, sunglasses on as you keep your eyes forward to avoid talking to anyone. the shops you adore so much are less than ten blocks, and even despite the cold demeanor you put forth, you can hear numerous shouts and leers as you cross the street.

you roll your eyes as you keep moving, and that’s when you see it.

you stop dead in your tracks and turn to look into the window of a shop you don’t remember having been there before, face to face with a painting of a girl that looks spectacularly like you. you’re not sure if you’re feeling worried, or scared, or impressed - after all, the painting just looks like you. there’s no proof to say that it is.

but you have a desperate need to find out.

you step inside the shop and it’s dark, the only light coming in from the sun outside. you quickly decide there is no one else inside this shop, a feeling of being utterly alone flowing through you.

“may i help you, miss?”

you shriek and jolt at the sound of a man’s voice behind you, old and raspy and deep. you turn to him, chest heaving, and nod slowly. “the - the painting in the window. i’d like to see it, please.”

the man - nearly decrepit for how old he must be - nods slowly, and leads you back towards the front of the shop where the painting is displayed. he gently takes the painting from its stand and holds it up in front of you. glancing slowly between you and the painting, he remarks on the resemblance.

“yes, yes, i - how long have you had this?” you ask, standing closer to the painting to inspect it heavily. it had dust on its frame, and the brushstrokes and use of color gave it an air of easy mastery. you laugh nervously. “i can’t even remember ever having seen this store.”

“a young man brought it to me recently. quite a handsome fellow himself, i must say. told me he’d found it among his father’s things.” the shopkeeper tells you, brushing some dust from the frame. at your comment about having never seen his store, he shrugs. “we do seem to pass through the public’s eye quite a bit. would you happen to be interested in buying the painting, miss?”

something in the pit of your gut tells you not to do it. you feel a strange sort of dread come over you at the idea of leaving it here though, and you find yourself nodding. “yeah, yeah i am interested. how much is it?”

you leave the shop now carrying not only multiple bags of clothes, but a painting of a girl who wasn’t you tucked under your arm as well. you’d asked the shopkeeper if he’d had any details on the man who’d brought the painting in, but he’d been unable to give you anything other than a short description and a reiteration that the man had really, truly been beautiful.

you’ve heard good things about the new art gallery that has just opened in downtown. showcasing young, talented artists desperate to make their breakthrough, students from the local art schools, students from local grade schools for fundraisers.

the first bad thing you hear comes the monday after you hang the painting in your apartment.

there are whispers in the halls as you make your way to your desk, and it’s not long before a coworker approaches you, voice a hushed whisper.

“there’s a showing at that new gallery,” she says. “i think you should be concerned.”

your face paints in confusion and you ask her why.

“the paintings are all of someone who looks just like you.”

perhaps, you thought, the painting in your apartment hadn’t come from someone’s attic at all.

you go to the gallery after work, steeling yourself before heading through the door. the title of the exhibition, a display tells you, is “a lesson in pride”.

you walk farther in and are greeted by a man sitting behind a reception desk. when he looks up at you, his face is frozen in shock. “it’s you.” he says, “you’re the muse.”

“excuse me,” you seethe, walking past him and into the exhibition hall. before you can even think about it, you’re surrounded by frame after frame, paintings all of a girl who look just like you. you hear footsteps coming down the hall after you, and you round quickly to see not only the receptionist, but a tall man you can only describe as ethereal.

“are you the artist?” you ask, not even trying to hide the anger in your tone. when the man nods, you step closer to him and get into his face, barely restraining the urge to punch him. “how long have you been watching me?”

“i don’t watch you, please. your instagram was in my suggested accounts feed a few months ago. i’m sure with all those followers you have you must barely notice new ones.” the man smirks down at you and you’re not sure if you believe him.

“what’s your account name?” you ask, opening the app on your phone.

“it’s prideofjunhui, miss. while you spend the next few minutes searching, would you like to see more of the exhibition?”

“i most certainly would not.” you bite, still scrolling through your list of followers. it wasn’t your fault that you’d somehow amassed a following. you find his account and there it is, full of aesthetic photos from familiar parts of the city and his paintings. you turn to him, still confused on the origins of the painting in your apartment. “i need you to come with me.”

“with how angry you seem to be, i’m not sure that’s a good idea.” he teases, and you’re angrier at yourself because the longer you look at him the less angry you are. his bone structure and proportions are flawless, and he’s dressed in a way that makes it clear he knows how attractive he is.

“i - i bought one of these paintings last weekend in a dingy old shop near my apartment. i want to know if it’s yours.”

the man - junhui, you assume - smiles wide and nods. “of course i’ll come take a look.”

junhui follows you back to your apartment and marvels at the painting where it hangs in your living room.

“it’s not mine.” he says. he’s smiling still as he says it, filling you with unease.

“it looks just like yours.” you press.

he only shrugs, before turning to you. “will you model for me?”

“will i - no, i’m not a model, i don’t model, i work in accounting.”

“you should be more proud of how beautiful you are.” he says softly, smiling at you warmly.

“who’s to say i’m not?” you ask, eyebrows raised. “after all, you’ve seen my instagram. i have hundreds of thousands of followers. everyone there tells me how beautiful i am.”

junhui hums. “i’m not sure i believe you. you have a face made to be painted, you know. painting really captures the true soul of a person, i think.”

“that’s not always a good thing.” you mumble, thinking about the paintings you’d learned about in your one art history class in college.

“no, no, it’s always a good thing.” junhui presses. “take me, for example. i’m absolutely certain that my paintings are the best. whether anyone else believes or supports that is irrelevant. that’s how you should feel about yourself. if i may be so bold,” he turns to you and takes your jaw in his hands, lifting it towards the ceiling. “you’re too beautiful to deal with anyone lesser.”

“what the fuck does that mean?” you jerk your head from his hands, and he’s smiling at you again, bright and wide.

“pretty people shouldn’t have to deal with the ugly ones.”

you thank junhui for his time and ask him to leave. he agrees only after giving you his number and making you promise to think about modelling for him.

you have always considered yourself to be a humble person. you’ve been society’s view of beautiful since childhood, but your parents had raised you to know that beauty comes from within.

you know, deep in your heart, that a person’s physical appearance has no bearing on who they truly are.

and yet, somehow, after your visit with junhui, that view begins to change.

your coworker, the same one who’d told you about the gallery exhibition, comes up to you the next day at work to ask if you’d gone to see it.

last week, if asked to describe her, you’d have listed all of her kindnesses, would have said that she was pretty and meant it. but as she stands in front of you now, all you can notice are her physical imperfections.

“it was fine.” you snip, “it turns out he follows my instagram, apparently i’m his muse now.” you find that you feel more pride saying that then you’d thought you would.

“oh, well, i’m so glad it turned out to be nothing to worry about!” she smiles warmly and all you can see is the crookedness of her teeth.

you grimace back, saying, “well i really should focus on this report.”

“oh! yes, of course.” she smiles again before returning to her own desk and you find yourself rolling your eyes.

as soon as she’s gone, panic rips through you - you’ve never been such a haughty person before.

you take a deep breath and focus on the numbers in front of you.

it happens again and again throughout the day - you catch yourself committing snippy little microaggressions to different coworkers, even the poor interns you’ve made a point to be nothing but kind to. you chalk it up to the lack of sleep you’d gotten the night before and do your best to make it through the rest of the day.

you make it home and you’re surprised to find junhui waiting for you. he smiles at you, and you raise your eyebrows at him.

“hello, beautiful.” he says and you roll your eyes. “aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“i don’t remember inviting you over.” you reply, sticking your keys into the lock and turning, opening the door and moving through.

junhui sticks his head through the doorway and sees you standing stock-still in your living room, mouth agape and eyes wide. you turn to him and lift a finger to point in the direction of the painting hanging on your wall.

“the - the painting.” you whisper.

junhui joins you in the living room and follows your gaze. the painting has changed - the mouth is curled into a hideous grin, teeth crooked and stained, the face covered in small boils, the hair dry and unkempt.

“how - how did this happen?” you can’t bring your voice above a hushed, fearful whisper.

“well, can i ask - have you looked in a mirror lately?”

your wide eyes turn to him before you slowly make your way into the nearby bathroom, and you scream at the sight you find there. your hands come up to cover your mouth before slowly lowering.

your reflection is familiar but somehow changed - your cheekbones more pronounced, lips softer and fuller, your eyelashes long and your nose less pronounced.

junhui joins you in the doorway of the bathroom, leaning on one arm. “i must say you look beautiful.”

“but - but how? why have i changed?” you push past him and out of the bathroom, refusing to look at the painting where it hangs.

“does it really matter?” junhui asks. “you’ve gotten more beautiful. what could possibly matter more than that?”

you ignore him, desperately going over what had been different about that day.

“of course there are things that matter more than that, junhui.” you shrill, eyes panicked.

he shrugs. “i’m not so sure that’s true. i mean, if you look like this, you really could be a model. steal men’s hearts, their wallets, anything you want, probably.” the look on his face is full of something dangerous. he steps closer to you and takes your face into his hands, thumbs rubbing over your cheeks.

“all i’m saying is whatever you’re doing differently, maybe you should keep doing it. being beautiful has so many advantages. you should be proud of yourself.”

you close your eyes and sigh, but make no move to remove yourself from his hold. you don’t really want to. “why do you keep saying that?”

“what? you should be proud. you’re more beautiful than so many of the hideous things i see on a day to day basis.” junhui presses forward and places his lips on yours. you feel something warm in the pit of your stomach as his mouth moves over your lips.

“you -” you pull away, panting, “you shouldn’t call people things.”

junhui laughs, “i think you’ll come around.”

junhui stays the night, and in the morning, both he and the painting are gone.

you feel a huge weight lifted from your shoulders, but in retrospect, perhaps you wish the painting would have stayed. served as a reminder.

your new attitude, you see, only grows worse.

each day, you find yourself upping the ante. your face is constantly twisted in disdain by the fact that you, someone so ethereal, should have to be surrounded by others who are clearly below you.

you put on your prettiest pout when you ask your boss for your own office and a raise. enthralled, he’s unable to deny your request - even when your request includes firing the man whose position you’ll be taking.

“i don’t like looking at him.” you tell your supervisor. “he makes me so uncomfortable.” it doesn’t matter that your discomfort comes from the poor man’s appearance. what matters is your discomfort.

the supervisor nods, eyes practically glazed over. you smile at him sweetly despite your inner disgust - really, he needed to learn how to shave and get his skin taken care of.

the day after you get the raise, you quit.

you’re finally going to be a model. agencies have been falling over their feet to hire you, and you feel like finally you’ll be able to show the world what real beauty looks like.

this is where things really begin to go wrong.

your face and your body stay as beautiful as ever, even as years full of drugs and partying and cheating and lying fly by - you never seem to age a day.

you become caught in scandal after scandal; you’re caught with that man’s wife, that man’s husband, caught stumbling drunk into photoshoots that have to be rescheduled, caught high behind the stage of your most recent paris fashion week.

and yet you are kept around, too beautiful and entrancing to say no to.

you often wonder if, as well as the enhanced beauty gifted to you by the painting, you’ve also gained the ability to bend others to your will. make them soft for your suggestions. not quite mind control, of course, more like...more like a siren’s song.

eventually, people start to become suspicious of the fact that you don’t seem to be aging. your competitors begin to wonder just how many surgeries you’ve had, which you always laugh heartily at when their claims are brought to your attention.

“really,” they posit, “someone with her drug and alcohol history should look far, far worse. if anything, she looks younger than when she started out.”

but through it all, there remains one constant aside from your petty, destructive behavior. your dreams about junhui.

every night since he left and took the painting with him, you’ve dreamed of him. some nights it’s of him holding the painting and watching it wither into an unrecognizable, black charred mess within its frame. other nights you dream of him morphing into the old man from the shop, over and over until you wake up near tears.

but the nightmares are bearable. you wake up in tears with a dull ache in your chest, but it passes - you remind yourself that you are the most beautiful woman in existence, that dreams and nightmares are merely made up by your brain, and nothing to worry about.

nothing at all, until you return to your home in paris and find junhui waiting outside your door, looking like he too hasn’t aged a day since you last saw him.

“well isn’t this a surprise.” you say flatly, and then you notice what’s leaning against the wall next to his legs.

he smiles, big and wide, and chuckles. “oh, i think you’ll be surprised all right. why don’t we go inside.”

you nod, hands shaking as you unlock the door and lead him inside. “i don’t - i don’t want to look at that.”

“oh, so you already know what it is, then?” junhui leans the painting against the wall.

“i haven’t seen in you in years and this - this is what you bring me? i don’t want it.”

junhui laughs, a dark hollow sound. “oh, but i’ve never left you! i see you every night, don’t i? and there have been a few men, and some women, in the last few years. i enjoyed keeping an eye on you.”

fear spikes cold through your chest and you begin to struggle breathing. “what are you saying, exactly, junhui?”

“oh, my dear, you have no idea what you’ve been apart of. who you’re dealing with. the things me and my kind are capable of.” junhui’s grin is venomous, teeth sharp and jagged in his mouth.

“you - your kind?” your entire body is trembling. the only thing you can think of is how you wished you’d never bought that fucking painting, never gone to that gallery.

“you’re smart, you must see what they say about you in the news. what those silly priests think about you over in the vatican. think about it, my dear.” junhui’s features are growing sharper and more ethereal the longer he stands in your presence. he nearly seems to glow.

“i’m not a witch, and i’m not possessed, and you’re not - demons aren’t - they’re not real.” you can’t fight the realization as it floods your thoughts, and junhui laughs as you fall to your knees.

“oh please. you thought you’d gone ten years without aging all by luck? i know you’re not that stupid. but i guess drugs can do that to even the smartest, prettiest girls.” junhui pats your head and you jerk away from his touch. he moves away from you and towards the wall where the painting leans, covered by a sheet.

“there’s something i want you to see.” his voice is full of mirth in a way that sends chills up your spine. you can feel the tears streaming down your face. he removes the sheet and turns the frame towards you, setting it down just in front of you.

when you refuse to look up at it, junhui grabs a fistful of your hair and forces your head up. “look.” your eyes open despite your wishes for them not to, and you sob at what you see.

there, in a pristine golden frame, the painting that was once a beautiful girl is now warped. it looks almost as if it has been dunked in acid and repainted, the beautiful girl replaced by a haggard, older woman surrounded by rotted flowers and dark, murky waters. “i don’t understand.” you whisper, voice thick with tears.

“this, my dear, is what you look like on the inside! and oh, how the humble do fall.” junhui shifts his grip in your hair and forces you to look up at him. “and it wasn’t even hard for you, was it? you fell from grace so quickly. it was beautiful to watch, really.”

“get out.” you whisper, jerking away from his hold to no avail. he grips harder and you shout, “get out!”

junhui’s laugh is maniacal, insane this time. he releases you and you fall forward, pushing yourself up and onto shaking legs.

“how do i undo it?” you demand, although through tears and a shaky voice it sounds more like a beg.

“you can’t just undo that many years of hateful pride, my dear. there’s really only one answer.” junhui chuckles again. “mortals are all really so, so foolish.”

you turn away from him to rub your eyes and when you turn back, more demands on your tongue, he’s gone. the door is still closed, the windows all locked, but you’re alone with the painting.

you take the painting into the kitchen and set it onto your counter. you grab a butcher’s knife from the block next to your fridge, and holding it in both shaking hands, lift it high above your head.

you hold for a few moments, and then with a scream, you plunge the knife into the painting, right into the woman’s chest.

they don’t find your body for a few days. when they do, you’re lying on the floor of your kitchen.

cause of death: a stab wound to the chest.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on [tumblr](https://seungcheolsbodyharness.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/carebearcoupsie)!!!


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